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Mesa 7.8.3 Release Candidate 1 Is Here

09-15-2010, 04:50 AM

Phoronix: Mesa 7.8.3 Release Candidate 1 Is Here

While Mesa 7.9 is just around the corner with a great number of new features and other improvements to this open-source graphics stack used by Linux and other operating systems, those being bound to releases that are proven stable will still be leaving with Mesa 7.8 until Mesa 7.9.1 or 7.9.2 is released later in the year. But for those stable users, there's also Mesa 7.8.3 that will soon be released...

... those being bound to releases that are proven stable will still be leaving with Mesa 7.8 until Mesa 7.9.1 or 7.9.2 is released later in the year. But for those stable users, there's also Mesa 7.8.3 that will soon be released...

Comment

Most development happens in master or in a feature branch. A subset of those changes go into point release branches.

The change flow and branch naming convention has changed a bit over time, and for a while the recommended change flow was "change first in the branch then merge to master" so it probably looked like a development branch, but AFAIK the purpose of the point releases (eg 7.8.3) is to deliver a low risk subset of changes, primarily bug fixes.

Comment

AFAIK mesa has no "development branches" any longer when it comes to versioning (i.e. major.minor) just like the kernel no longer has it.

If you read the releasenotes you linked to you will see that in the notes for 7.8.0 they say that that release is a dev release, and that the stability release will be 7.8.1. Because they found some outstanding bugs in the release notes for 7.8.1 they say it should also be considered a release version, and 7.8.2 should be stable.
And since they in 7.8.2 does not mention if it is a dev or stable, I should gess on the latter.

Even though this is a bug fix release, given its proximity to the 7.8 release, a new development release, it should also be considered new development release. People who are concerned with stability and reliability should stick with a previous release, such as 7.7.1, or wait for Mesa 7.8.2.

The kernel does have a mainline with release candidates, but AFAIK the new 2.6.x version is considered a stable release.

Please Google it
Because of a change in the development process (i.e. stop "everyone send patches to Linus" and instead have some sort of revision control system) during the 2.5.x cycle when the they shifted to 2.6.0 the kernel devs decided on not open a 2.7.x development serie, but instead start do all development in other repos and merge it into 2.6.x as new features came along ad seemed stable enough. Greg KH picks some versions of the 2.6.x kernels and does LTS versions.
They are currently 2.6.27.53 and 2.6.32.21 and as you can see there is no "odd/even" numbering what so ever to tell which 2.6.x is a "stable" and what is a "LTS".
And there are no "development versions".

Comment

Forgot to point out that this is just like Mesa where the most work are done in git master or in branches, and when they seem stable enough they are merged into master, which sooner or later will be branched for release and stamped with a version number.

@Michael, I am sending the bill for my hair transplantations to you because of this stupid 1 min rule for editing!